Specific Relief – Perpetual injunction – Requirement of settled lawful possession – Plaintiff’s burden – Registered sale deed and pattadar passbook not sufficient by themselves. Plaintiff sought permanent injunction claiming to have purchased Ac.0.22 cents in Sy.No.252/12 through Ex.A1 registered sale deed from D1 and to be in possession (cattle shed and threshing floor). Plaintiff neither produced title deed book nor tax receipts to prove possession; pattadar passbook Ex.A2 alone was relied upon. Trial Court and Appellate Court held that for equitable relief of injunction, plaintiff must prove settled lawful possession as on the date of suit and cannot succeed merely on the basis of a registered sale deed and passbook, particularly when vendor denies the boundaries and possession is not otherwise established. Injunction refused.

1. Civil Procedure Code, 1908 – Section 100 – Second appeal – Concurrent findings – Scope of interference.
   Suit for permanent injunction dismissed by Trial Court on the ground that plaintiff failed to establish lawful possession over suit schedule property; dismissal confirmed by First Appellate Court. In second appeal, plaintiff assailed exclusion of Ex.A1 sale deed and non-acceptance of oral evidence of his witnesses. High Court held that both Courts below had properly appreciated the entire oral and documentary evidence; exclusion of Ex.A1, on the vendor’s own denial of boundaries and mismatch of survey particulars, was a factual appreciation. No perversity, misreading, or non-consideration of material evidence shown. No substantial question of law arises; second appeal dismissed at admission stage.

2. Specific Relief – Perpetual injunction – Requirement of settled lawful possession – Plaintiff’s burden – Registered sale deed and pattadar passbook not sufficient by themselves.
   Plaintiff sought permanent injunction claiming to have purchased Ac.0.22 cents in Sy.No.252/12 through Ex.A1 registered sale deed from D1 and to be in possession (cattle shed and threshing floor). Plaintiff neither produced title deed book nor tax receipts to prove possession; pattadar passbook Ex.A2 alone was relied upon. Trial Court and Appellate Court held that for equitable relief of injunction, plaintiff must prove settled lawful possession as on the date of suit and cannot succeed merely on the basis of a registered sale deed and passbook, particularly when vendor denies the boundaries and possession is not otherwise established. Injunction refused.

3. Evidence – Registered sale deed – Vendor turning hostile – Boundaries and identity of property in dispute – Effect on probative value.
   Ex.A1 sale deed stood in plaintiff’s name for land in Sy.No.252/12 to an extent of Ac.0.22 cents. However, D2 was not claiming any land in that survey number and only disputed boundaries; and DW2 (vendor/1st defendant) himself denied the boundaries of the suit schedule property and did not support plaintiff’s version. Trial Court, therefore, excluded Ex.A1 from consideration for purposes of establishing possession over the actual land in dispute. High Court upheld this approach, holding that a registered document, when not supported by its own executant as to boundaries/identity, cannot by itself entitle plaintiff to an injunction over the land which is in controversy.

4. Evidence – Revenue entries – Pattadar passbook – Limited value without supporting material – Injunction suit.
   Ex.A2 pattadar passbook in plaintiff’s name covered various lands, including Sy.No.252/12, Ac.0.22 cents. In the absence of title deed book, tax receipts, or other corroborative material linking plaintiff’s actual possession to the disputed site, the passbook was held insufficient to prove present possession. Both Courts below held that revenue entries and passbooks, without more, do not by themselves prove settled possession for the purposes of granting perpetual injunction.

5. Pleadings and Issues – Scope of suit confined to particular survey number – Effect.
   Plaintiff throughout confined his claim to Sy.No.252/12, Ac.0.22 cents, and asserted that he is not concerned with land in Sy.No.252/7 or new Sy.No.252/9, which were involved in earlier disputes and decrees in favour of D2. Trial Court treated this as a clear delimitation of the suit claim and examined only whether plaintiff proved possession over the claimed land in Sy.No.252/12. On evidence, that possession was not proved. High Court accepted this approach and refused to convert the second appeal into a re-trial on title disputes in other survey numbers.

6. Civil Procedure Code, 1908 – Section 100 – Substantial question of law – Tests reiterated – Concurrent findings not to be interfered with.
   Relying on Govindaraju v. Mariamman and Santosh Hazari v. Purushottam Tiwari, High Court reiterated that a second appeal lies only when a substantial question of law arises: the question must be debatable, not previously settled; must be founded in pleadings; must emerge from sustainable findings of fact; and must be necessary for decision of the case. Observed that plaintiff’s proposed “substantial questions” merely sought re-appreciation of findings on Ex.A1, PW4’s evidence, and possession, and did not disclose any legal question of that nature. Second appeal held not maintainable on facts.

II. Analysis – Facts, Burden of Proof, and Section 100 CPC

1. Factual matrix and competing versions

Plaintiff’s case:

• He claims a permanent injunction over Ac.0.22 cents in Sy.No.252/12 in Pedapenki village.

• He says this land originally fell to the share of the defendants’ family in an old oral partition; it came to the share of D1’s father; thereafter D1 was in possession.

• Plaintiff then allegedly purchased this Ac.0.22 cents from D1 under Ex.A1 registered sale deed.

• He asserts that he constructed a cattle shed in part and used the rest as a threshing floor, thus being in physical, settled possession.

• He complains that D2, armed with a decree in O.S.No.293/2009 (filed, he says, in collusion with D1), is trying to occupy the suit land under the guise of that decree.

Defence (mainly D2):

• D2’s case is that his rights flow from settlement patta No.1315; lands were purchased in 1980 under two registered sale deeds by him and his father from Pedappalanaidu.

• His title and possession were already upheld in earlier litigations: O.S.No.226/1980, O.S.No.41/1993 and A.S.No.44/1992.

• He says plaintiff is trying to interfere on the strength of Ex.A1 sale deed obtained from D1, who is only a distant relative and had no title or possession over the land actually belonging to D2.

• Crucially, as noted by both courts, D2 does not claim any land in Sy.No.252/12; his holdings are in Sy.No.252/7 / new Sy.No.252/9 etc. His challenge is really about boundaries and identity of the land actually on the ground.

2. How the Trial Court dismantled plaintiff’s case

(a) Ex.A1 – registered sale deed – why it was excluded

Ex.A1 is plaintiff’s main document. On paper, it looks good: registered sale deed from D1; Sy.No.252/12; extent Ac.0.22 cents. But two evidentiary problems arise:

• First, D2 explicitly states he is not claiming any land in Sy.No.252/12; his patta and prior decrees pertain to different survey numbers.

• Second, and more damaging, DW2 – the vendor, who executed Ex.A1 in favour of plaintiff – does not support plaintiff’s version in the witness box. He disputes or denies the boundaries of the suit schedule property as now pleaded by plaintiff.

Once your own vendor refuses to support the boundaries and the actual identity of the land you are claiming injunction over, Ex.A1 loses its probative edge for the particular site in dispute. A registered deed proves that such a conveyance was executed, but in an injunction suit the court is concerned with “this specific piece of land, described by these boundaries, on this ground.” If the executant himself says, in effect, “these are not the boundaries; this is not the land,” the court is entitled to treat Ex.A1 as unreliable for the specific claim and to “eliminate” it from consideration.

That is exactly what the Trial Court did, and the High Court approves that approach.

(b) Failure to prove lawful possession with independent material

Even assuming Ex.A1 shows some title, the suit is not for declaration but for bare injunction. That immediately triggers the strict rule: plaintiff must prove settled lawful possession as on the date of suit.

On that test:

• Plaintiff did not file title deed book, tax receipts, or any independent revenue evidence showing his name in actual enjoyment of the exact site in dispute.

• Ex.A2 pattadar passbook does mention Sy.No.252/12, Ac.0.22 cents in plaintiff’s name, but that is a general entry in his passbook, not a precise link to the particular “cattle shed and thrashing floor” site he is litigating over now.

• Without title deed book and tax receipts, and with the vendor himself not supporting the boundaries, the courts below were not prepared to treat the passbook as proof of current, settled possession.

The Trial Court therefore finds that plaintiff simply has not discharged his burden to show that, as on date of suit, he was in peaceful possession and the defendants were interfering.

3. The role of PW4’s evidence and why it did not help

One of the questions framed for second appeal complains that the courts did not “consider” PW4’s evidence supporting execution of Ex.A1 but instead believed DW2. This is an attempt to recast a pure credibility issue as a question of law.

In substance:

• PW4 is only supporting Ex.A1; but Ex.A1 itself is undermined by the vendor’s testimony and by the mismatch between survey claims and the property actually under threat.

• Once the Trial Court finds that Ex.A1 cannot be safely relied upon to identify and link the present suit land, PW4’s support to Ex.A1 does not take plaintiff very far.

• The High Court treats this as classic re-appreciation: which witness is more believable about boundaries and ownership is a factual matter, already decided twice.

Thus the “PW4 v. DW2” theme cannot be dressed up as a substantial question of law.

4. Injunction suits: title versus possession in this case

A subtle but important point: the Trial Court notes that plaintiff is not claiming Sy.No.252/7 / new 252/9; he insists he is only in Sy.No.252/12. D2’s old decrees apparently relate to his patta lands in other survey numbers. That means:

• The Court does not treat this as a complex title dispute between two claimants to the same survey number.

• Instead, it focuses on a narrow question: has the plaintiff, for the land he says is in 252/12, proved his possession?

Once the answer is “no”, the suit for bare injunction fails, without the Court having to give D2 any declaratory advantage.

This is also why the High Court finds no legal error: the courts below have applied the standard injunction principle correctly – you cannot get an injunction merely by showing your registered document when your vendor refuses to back you and you have no independent evidence of present enjoyment

5. Section 100 CPC – How the High Court locks the door

The second appeal was pitched on three supposed substantial questions of law, all essentially variations of:

• “The courts wrongly discarded Ex.A1 despite admitting it was registered and not cancelled.”

• “The courts wrongly preferred DW2 over PW4.”

The High Court, after quoting Govindaraju v. Mariamman and Santosh Hazari, restates the settled tests:

• A substantial question of law must be debatable, not already settled;

• It must arise from the facts already found, not be a disguised attack on those findings;

• It must be necessary to decide that question for resolving the case.

On that framework, the Court reasons:

• Whether Ex.A1 should be given weight, when its executant denies boundaries, is a classic fact-appreciation issue.

• Whether PW4 or DW2 is more credible is even more clearly factual.

• Whether possession was proved on the date of suit is also factual.

Since both the Trial Court and Appellate Court have reached the same conclusion on these issues, and there is no allegation that they ignored any crucial admissible evidence or relied on something inadmissible, the findings are “concurrent findings of fact” and not open to interference.

The High Court expressly says that the suggested grounds “cannot be termed as substantial questions of law” and therefore refuses admission at the threshold.